Private The First Shall Be Last

[Cedric Grayson]

For but a moment, the Reiugen allowed himself to touch upon the face of the empyrean. It wasn't so much a choice he made as an involuntary decision that his body made for him, but it was still a decision nonetheless. In the past, he had been gifted the foresight his grandmother had once been famous for. It rarely spoke to him anymore, but there were times such as these when he felt the strands of the immaterium pulling him one way or another.

The strings hung over Juniper as if she were a marionette. They guided as much as they were led, shifted as the currents willed, and ultimately ended...somewhere. He wasn't quite certain of it looking at her, which to Jun would have looked like the exile was simply staring at her for a moment. Most were simply pushed along by the strings, but a handful of beings had some sense of autonomy over them. This was, as Cedric understood it, the will of the Force in motion. Almost everyone he had ever come across was simply along for a preordained ride, but Juniper had chosen another path.

The strings were still there. Still tugging her where they wanted her to go, but she resisted whether she was aware of it or not. The empyrean responded to her without her even needing to make a request of it, and with that knowledge came realization.

He did well to keep that understanding from infecting his features. He instead offered her a tired smile, nodded along, and made the private decision to try and meditate once he had a moment alone. "I'm more worried about you getting us killed than anything else," he jested, "That aside, I think you have it what it takes to take care of yourself Juniper. You've done well enough by me at least, and I'm supposed to be a Jedi."

The exile snickered, "Don't need to worry about the ship. You should be more worried about letting a drunk get a hold of it, which," he grunted as he hopped off the table, "I happen to be, as you've so acutely discerned, so maybe your worries aren't wholly misplaced."

She was right, of course. The booze was an escape and a poison, nothing more. Even after reaching out to Ryv and promising his old apprentice that he would find his way to Ruusan, he'd consigned himself to wasting away, forgotten and unheard. Any hope of actually leaving his squalor had quickly been cast aside after sending his last message.

And yet the strings kept on pulling him. There was a reason he'd come across Juniper, and perhaps he was meant to find his way back home. Only the Force truly knew. Either way, he would see home again soon, and with some luck, maybe the boy would come home too.

Maybe he'd just needed to be reminded of what compassion looked like.

"I'll never say no to food." He never understood time in hyperspace well, but he surmised it'd be at least a day to Ruusan, and likely more. No sense in going hungry. "And don't worry about the flask," he added as he passed her heading toward the mess, "It was starting to to smell a little funny anyway."

Juniper Jett

 

[Juniper Jett]

Juniper noticed him staring. It was a little bit weird, she had to admit. Like, he was staring at her but completely zoned out without much focus at all. Her hand twitched, tempted to wave the air above her head to try and bring him back from whatever place he'd gone to, but she decided to leave it. Probably nothing, right? All that booze working it's way out of his system. Even a former Jedi couldn't hold back against the onslaught of alcohol that was surely still ravaging it's way through his system, right?

Right?

But even in that moment, something felt strange. For a second, something resonated within herself. A strange tingle that felt half-within, half-without. Something inside but greater than herself. Just for a tiny part of second, she felt like something different-

And then it was gone. Juniper blinked slowly, like she'd completely lost where she was. The room, her guest and the conversation all came flooding back to her as she rolled her eyes at him, watching him climb off the table.

"Don't worry, you're not allowed anywhere near the controls. Not without a blood alcohol test," she joked. Though seriously, he wasn't allowed anywhere near the controls. Juniper was clingy about her ship at the best of times.

She stood aside, letting him walk past. Hoping that when she scrunched up her nose to avoid the smell, it wasn't too obvious. Showers. Make sure I show him that there's a shower in the cabin. Yeah.

The mess was decently sized for a light freighter. Nothing much to distinguish it from the other kinds of ship he'd no doubt been on in his years, aside from the choice in food. If he'd open up the fridge, he'd see a strange mix of good ingredients that were well-sourced (with a particular lean towards the cuisine of metropolitan dwellers of the Core Worlds) and an incredible amount of bottled, diet soda.

"Make yourself whatever you want. I'd offer but I'm not..." In the mood? Feeling up for it? Confident in my own ability?

"I'm just not a good cook. You don't wanna eat my food, especially on your stomach." She was not mopping that off the beautiful, dented floor of her ship. "I think there's some ready-made stuff at the back somewhere. I dunno, I tend to pick up more food when I'm taking on passengers."

"Well, I mean, when I'm expecting to take on passengers. Y'know, not just casually offering."

Cedric Grayson

 

[Cedric Grayson]

Food had become something of a luxury, and it didn't take Juniper asking twice for him to spring his way over toward the kitchen cabinet. Upon initially taking his Barash Vow he'd abstained from all mortal luxuries, and for a Master experienced in the art of meditation food was one of those luxuries. One could survive for days on end without food or water whilst in a deep meditative trance, and he'd practically lived in those trances for the first half of the vow.

The second was brought on by his failure against the Bryn'adul, but that was an event he was not keen on recounting. His sinking into a life of booze and general confusion had followed shortly thereafter, and more or less continued until now. It shouldn't have though, not after meeting with his nephew, or sending that message for his former apprentice. He should've put the bottle down and focused back on what remained. This was his third opportunity to make a change, and the empyrean had practically thrown him at the girl as if to say this was his final chance and another failure would be the end of him.

Only a fool could spit ignore such divine providence.

"Huh," he peered at the assorted ingredients, "Not what I was expecting." They closely resembled what many of the street vendors back on Coruscant would have served. Far healthier than the fatty cheap stuff the outer rim churned out regularly. He glanced back over his shoulder at her. "Don't eat like an outlander."

He found himself a couple slices of bread and promptly got to chowing. "Where you from?"

Juniper Jett

 

[Juniper Jett]

Like most people her own age, Juniper wasn't a stranger to overindulging. The state of the mess area when she'd first loaded up the ship a few months before... it looked a mess. Even the drunkard in front of her might've said she'd gone too far. The very idea of a life without food would be utterly insane to her. Nowadays, she was a tiny bit wiser with her nutrition. And her credits. Less gorging on whatever unhealthy stuff she could find. Instead, she limited herself to the single vice of soda addiction.

Case in point, she grabbed one of the bottles and snapped it open, drinking some down as he commented on her food supply. She'd certainly sampled enough Outer Rim-style cuisine in her early trading days to know better. Now, when she took jobs closer to the Core Worlds, she always made sure to stop off somewhere and take on supplies.

Trying not to choke at his sudden probing question, she put her bottle down as casually as she could. "Coruscant," she lied, feigning interest in her nails to avoid eye contact. She'd told the lie so often now she thought it'd get easier. It never did. She could feel her ears starting to warm up, turning pink. "Dad was a trader and I guess I just took after him. Never much interested in other work," she said, just spilling out more and more rubbish.

She'd learned that the more random details you fling at a person, the less likely they were to follow up on things. That, and she could just about pull off the accent of a Coruscanti trader, so long as nobody really analysed her linguistics.

He'll turn out to be the Jedi High Master of dialects and truth, knowing my luck.

"What about you? The same?" she asked quickly, trying to rip the attention away from herself. "Seeing as you mentioned the Alliance and their Jedi." Trying to picture a young Cedric didn't get her very far. He just looked like he'd strolled into the Galaxy looking dishevelled and pickled.

"You know if you've been gone a long time, they'd probably like to know you're around," Juniper suggested, her feelings softening slightly. "I mean, if you trained a bunch of them, even if you did mess up, aren't you guys all meant to be about forgiveness and moving past things and that? Or something? I don't know, I'm not big into religion."

Cedric Grayson

 

[Cedric Grayson]

Years of training teenagers had taught Cedric a thing or two about deception. He didn't pick up on it immediately, but the way she seemed to almost stammer for her words was curious. Coruscant was a huge world, and it was difficult to pick up when someone truly was from there or not, making a common go to answer for people that would rather obfuscate their origins.

He didn't know her well enough to ascertain whether she was lying to him, and didn't really think it was his business one way or the other. "Ah, so you call yourself a trader," he eyed the bite marks in the loaf of bread he was chewing on as if to inspect its quality. "And not a smuggler. I'll keep that in mind for future reference."

The bread was finished, and he found questions thrown back his way.

"In a sense," he paused to consider whether it was wise to explain further, "I come from a world called Ession. It was once the Jedi's first defense against the Sith Empire and the governments that came before it, and the Sith weren't keen on that." He settled down in one of the chairs and decided if he was going to give the preamble, he might as well give it all. "Unfortunately for us the Galactic Alliance's predecessor and the Silvers were far too busy dealing with internal affairs to send their armies to help us. Our armies were crushed, the planet was glassed, now we're an endangered species." He waved an arm around dismissively at his own words. It was still a sore point - it would always be a sore point - but it had been so many years that he'd grown used to talking about it casually. "You'll hear a similar story from several other worlds the Sith have crushed."

"During the era of imperial anarchy five or so years ago our survivors went to the Core, subdued the warlords that controlled it, and brought Coruscant and its constituent worlds back to some sense of decency. The Galactic Alliance as we know it was formed by the dissolution of our state into a greater union with the only other democratic power in the core."

Try as he might, Cedric couldn't keep himself from looking a bit irritated as he continued. "That was out of my control. It wasn't what I had envisioned, wasn't enough to accomplish what I thought was required, and so I left."

The exile shook his head, "Haven't been back since."

Another pause, and then Cedric immediately perked up. "Religion's pretty fun, by the way. Not all boring like you might have been led to believe, of course the Jedi aren't so much a religious organization as an order based around a choice of lifestyle. We all interpret the Force in different ways."

Juniper Jett

 

[Juniper Jett]

Juniper listened closely to the history lesson, checking it against her memories of home. Whilst she wasn't actually from Coruscant (shock), she was from close-enough that the events made sense in her head. She remembered the unification of the Core, flitting in the memories of her young teenage self. Something that appeared on the news, something that she heard adults discussing at parties and dinners, flitting inbetween music, riding and remedial etiquette lessons.

A piece of living history right there on her ship.

"I'm sorry to hear about Ession," she finally said. It wasn't worth much but hey, thought counts. Sometimes. There were hundreds of stories just like it. Sith invasions, collateral damage from the endless wars, now the Bryn devastating planets in the Galactic Northeast... plenty of awfulness to go around. Even if she had been cloistered away from it in mind-numbing privilege.

The way he spoke though... it was like he was high up. Out of my control he said. Like he'd had some options. Grunts at the bottom of the pile tend not to speak that way. Who was he?

"I tend not to go through the Core much either. Rarely, maybe a stop at Coruscant for work if I need to. Much better work outside of it." It was partly true, though the real reason was much simpler than any misgivings or thoughts on the ideology of the Alliance. She was still worried that one day, she'd slide into the wrong starport on the Core Worlds and she'd get flagged, then they'd know she was there and they'd come for her.

Not getting married, I'm not getting married...

Luckily, Cedric decided now was the time to opine on religion, which helped Juniper pour some scorn on her deepest fears. "Yeah I'm sure it's not a religion. Just lots of meditating in temples for the fun of it, right? They're called temples not because they're religious, no, because they're, I dunno, real tempting?" she tried, making the kind of horrendous pun that deserved actual jail time. "I'm sure we all interpret the Force differently. Right now, I'm interpreting that it can go do one and leave me to do my own thing."

Understandably, Juniper took a dim view of anything involving destiny or being controlled by the will of something else, whether that was parent, ex-fiancee or cosmic energy field that flowed through everything.

Finally, the curiosity was too much. "Just... how high were you back then? I mean in rank, not, like... spice." Tripping over her words as she narrowed her eyes. "You don't act like someone low down. It sounds like you were pretty important."

Cedric Grayson

 

[Cedric Grayson]

The condolences were welcomed, but not needed. The exile had long since come to terms with what had happened. There was little point in getting wrapped up in it any longer, or letting his feelings about it influence his actions. They lived in a galaxy of uncertainty, and either Ession would be avenged, or it wouldn't. Neither option would change much in the grand scheme of things.

So why be concerned?

"I appreciate it, but it's alright. It's been nearly a decade," he mumbled, "My people have learned to thrive as wayfarers. Even still, I would like to return one day, even if all that's left is a glassed rock."

He couldn't really blame her for avoiding the core. There wasn't much money to be made there moving exotic goods - there was already enough legal trade going on in that department. Coruscant was not particularly his cup of tea either; not since the sweeping changes to its culture and general way of being in the past few years.

Then she spoke on the Jedi, and she had a bit of a point. "I suppose technically it could be called a religion," Cedric relented begrudgingly, "But it's honestly more akin to a way of life than a detailed belief system. The Jedi Code only teaches you to live in harmony with the Force: meditation, temples. and everything associated with them only helps to reach that harmony. The way you interpret and understand the Force, your relationship with it, that is religion. We live in an age of spiritual warfare Juniper. The galaxy is in conflict with itself for the fate of its own soul." He was always keen on waxing philosophical.

A brow was lofted at her final question. Cedric did not answer at once, but instead turned his gaze toward the celling, hummed quietly to himself for a moment, and considered. "Pretty high up," a simple answer to a not so simple question. "Not anymore though, so it doesn't much matter. My future isn't in the core anyway."

Juniper Jett

 

[Juniper Jett]

Heeeeere we go. Crusades and spiritual warfare. Was this a recruitment advert wrapped up in a philosophical debate? The idea of the Galaxy having a soul was alien to her. Eyes too focused on her own worries and setbacks to see any kind of greater picture. The whole idea of a 'way of life' sounded too rigid. Too static. Too inflexible. Some ancient code and ancient, half-dead elders or masters deciding how you were meant to live your life?

Noooo thank you.

"Yeah well, sounds like I'm lucky not to be a Jedi then. As cool as jumping around with a laser sword was, don't think I'm cut out for the whole space-monk lifestyle, or crusading across the Galaxy." It was meant as a flippant comment, nothing more. She could share the general idea, y'know, getting rid of Sith and creepy Empires and genocidal monsters. She was one girl with a ship though, so she'd be staying the heck away from it all and letting the professionals deal with that.

If they can.

He clearly had been someone important. He also clearly didn't want to talk about it, so she let it be with a shrug. "Fair enough. To Ruusan it is." Juniper could only imagine the utter series of disasters that lead to an important Jedi Master drinking himself to death at the edge of the Galaxy... or how big a target she'd painted on herself for stopping to help him. She chose not to dwell on that though.

"I'll go and make sure the navigation computer's keeping us on the right path. You... do what you want, I guess?" she suggested with a half-smirk, turning away. Just the sound of her boots thumping on the floor, echoes of firm leather on metal as she stamped through her ship.

Cedric Grayson

 

[Cedric Grayson]

"It certainly isn't for everyone," Cedric mumbled in agreement. In ages past. he might have debated with her on that, and he likely would have tried to sway her views to be more in line with his own. As things were now, doing so was wildly irresponsible. There was no basis for him to teach from anymore, nor any kind of support network. He was flying blind for all intents and purposes, and to bring someone else aboard with him would only put them in further danger. He wasn't ready to be responsible for that again.

"I would prefer if we didn't smash into a star." He called out as she made her way toward the nav-comp. The silence that followed was near deafening, and Cedric found himself staring blankly at one of the walls for several minutes before his thoughts began to coalesce into something of meaning. Left to his own devices, the Jedi wandered over toward his quarters, sealed the door shut behind him, and knelt down.

The cabin floor was colder than he would have liked.

The exile drew in a deep breath as he folded his legs over one another, pressed his hands to his knees, and allowed his eyes to drift shut. It had been several months since he had attempted a proper meditation, and the position felt almost alien to him. To attempt to immerse himself within the empyrean so deeply had become a great source of fear for Cedric. The last time he had done so the agony had been too great to bear, and fragments of the future it had given him promised only more of it. The experience had left him wanting little to do with the Force or its promises; it had reduced him into little more than a coward.

If he had been immersed within it during the conflict with the Bryn'adul, he would not have been struck down, nor would the Dark Troopers have ever done him any harm more recently. He could have stood against the encroaching darkness as he always had, but instead the once famed warrior had crumbled.

It was time to put an end to his cowardice.

Silence and the sound of his own breathing was all that greeted him at first. He felt nothing, save for his own existence, and the emptiness of the void surrounding his ship. The Great Ocean he had once swam in was now little more than a dry desert, devoid of any of the life it had once hosted. The process of exiting the physical body was a subtle one - for a moment he was simply imagining a wasteland, and the next felt himself standing upon its face as if he were physically there.

"Not as dramatic as I was expecting," he mumbled to himself. The words carried over the emptiness, echoing as if he were within a deep cave, and then coming back in a series of high pitched warblings that distorted his voice into little more than unintelligible chattering. The sound sent the hair on the back of his neck straight up, and he moved to turn around.

The moment he did so, he found himself standing atop the senate building on Coruscant. The planet's skyline was a blotchy mix of yellow and crimson that reminded him of a gangrenous wound. The metaphor only brought him further discontent, which was exacerbated by the sudden crumbling of several dozen skyscrapers. Great wedge shaped ships cut through the skies like voxynn on the hunter, and streams of turbolaser fire thundered down from the heavens to set more buildings low.

The similarity between this and the visions he had received before The Fall was striking. The first had proven itself to be prophecy, so what did that make this? Another portent of doom gifted to him by the curse of his blood, or a Sith trick?

"It is no trick." The voice rumbled from all around him. Cedric's brow furrowed with displeasure as he looked around for the source. "The Great Enemy has arrived boy." The voice seemed to collapse in on itself, echoing much as Cedric's own had louder and faster until it didn't, and in its absence stood a lanky figure clad head to toe in dark blue robes. Its features were hidden beneath its cowl, as so often prophets were.

"We should still have several years," Cedric protested, but the figure simply waved him off. "Had. You had years, and you squandered them. Where is your empire? Where are your armies boy? Did I not give you time to prepare?"

"I tried!" The exile protested, "But the people didn't understand. They didn't see my vision." He mouthed unintelligible gibberish as he fought for the right words. "The wars continue."

"That they do." The figure responded. "With each death, its influence grows. It feeds upon conflict, you know this, and yet you have done nothing to stop it even when you had the power to do so! You are as much an acolyte of the coming end as the Sith you call foe."

"That isn't true," Cedric snapped as another building was sliced in half by a massive bolt of emerald lightning. "I tried to unite them. I did everything in my power."

"You sought power," the figure corrected. "And when it was stripped away from you, you chose to live as a wretch, whilst knowing full well that the Bogan's influence is still growing. You should have remained, and guided them as our ancestors would have, much as you should have continued fighting as they did."

"I am not one of the ancestors," the exile snarled as he marched up to the noticeably taller figure. "Everything I have done, I have done for the Ashla and for her people. They were better off without me to mislead them. My Barash Vow was just as much a service as any conflict I've bled in."

"No." The figure shook its head, "It was easier for you. Easier to escape the shame, easier to cut ties, and easier not to face those who once followed you. A Jedi is to be a pillar of inner strength boy, and you have shattered."

The fires engulfing the city drew ever closer as they argued. Cedric paid them little heed - he was too busy trying to come up with a response that didn't sound inane. Everything the ancestor had said was true, and it was all what he had elected to avoid by drowning himself in intoxication. If he could not face it, then he could run from it, but now he had no choice.

"You failed, my child," a gloved hand was offered, "But it is not too late to rewrite the wrongs of yesterday. There is still time to stop the hammer's fall."

The sound of a city dying all around him thundered in the exile's ears as he stared at the outstretched hand. "How?"

"Walk the path once again. Honor the commitments we made to the people." The voice paused for a moment, and was far softer when it spoke again, "The aliens, the Sith, the Great Enemy's cults, they will see everything we built turned to dust. Even if you can't stop them, you must try. There is no future for you, or my son if you don't."

The flames began to engulf the senate building as the figure drew back its cowl. Cedric could only stare as he felt his heart leap into his throat. When he spoke, his words were unfiltered. "Caida! I...what if I return? If I walk that path again, what's stopping me from ending up like our father?"

His sister turned her gaze to the burning city below. "Only yourself." Her eyes met his, and she offered that same light smile she'd always worn right before asking him for a favor. "If it's any consolation Cedy, I always had faith in you. You'll take care of Mikhail and your students, and then you'll rise to the occasion. That is why I preserved you back on Ruusan. " Her lips pressed into a thin line as she gestured toward the hellish landscape all around them.

"This is your only alternative."

That wasn't much of an option. Cedric parted his lips to speak, and flames moved in. Before a word could escape his lips, the inferno engulfed his sister, and then he too was trapped within its vortex. His flesh was just beginning to register the fire, scorching it right off when his head slammed into the cold cabin floor, and he found himself once again aboard Juniper's ship.

Cold sweat covered his body, and his limbs ached terribly from lack of movement. His head thundered with a great pain as well, but these bodily sensations went more or less unnoticed. All the exile could focus upon was the swirling ocean that lay sprawled out before him within his mind's eye. Despite his initial fears, it waters were as endless and welcoming as they had always been.

Juniper Jett

 

[Juniper Jett]

Juniper heard his wisecrack as she stomped off towards the bridge, rolling her eyes and silently swearing at him. "I'm not the drunkard here!" she yelled out, leaving him to his weird Jedi prayers, or whatever the heck they did. She didn't need some creepy connection to some distant magic stuff. He could be in one of her cabins right now, wasting her precious oxygen by burning incense, or chanting weirdness. Who really knew what Jedi got up to in private?

Then again, Juniper's own knowledge of Jedi practises came from sensationalist news reports and very salacious holonet articles, so what did she know?

Retreating to the safety of beeping machines and clicking consoles, Juniper sank into the leather and tapped through the diagnostics. Everything fine. Still on track for Ruusan. Fuel was good. Pressure good. No drains in coolant anywhere. Nothing looking like it was about to break... excellent. A good ride... for once.

That was when she felt it.

Soda still in her hand, she froze for a second. A tingling sensation went through her, like a gentle wave lapping at the back of her neck. Like little sparks of energy flowing up from the seat, pulsing through her, right out to the ends of each hair. The room seemed to fade slightly, almost like it was distant and blurred, as something stirred in her.

She breathed. The air seemed electric and cold, burning at her lungs. Drifting away from what she knew, her home, her life that she'd made into a cloying strangeness that seemed to encompass everything. Whole, scattershot images from her life flashed before her, as if running on some corrupted vid. Childhood. Playing with friends. School. The ship. Fixing it. The smile of her uncle. The harsh look of her mother. The engagement. Her escape. Clients. Haggling over fuel, creds, goods, everything...

Then, with a blink, she was back. She looked around, hair whipping around her, like she expected to see someone there staring at her. There was nothing. Nothing but the comforting hum of navigation equipment and the life support systems rumbling beneath the metal floor.

Taking a breath, Juniper looked down at her soda.

"I've got to stop drinking this trash," she muttered to herself, putting it down in the little plastic holder beside her seat. Still feeling on edge from whatever had just happened.

Just shook up. That's all. Just real shook up from those dark troopers.

Cedric Grayson